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I personally think that Gary Mckinnon has done a favour on the US Military and NASA by pointing the vulnerabilities in their systems. As he has mentioned in some interviews that he discovered that they use Windows and he hacked into the systems by using very simple scripts like Perl which gives the informatioin of the accounts that use blank passwords.

Its US military and NASA for f^c%'s sake... i mean its a dream of all the crackers in the world to crack these systems ... and this chap has done that .... what say ?

I have been following this over the years, and I dont think he has ever denied what he did is wrong, regardless of the fact he says its in the search of truth etc.The problem I see is that this country is not doing enough to support him, and as far as I am aware the US Military divisions who claim he caused all this damage etc, to warrant the extradition have not provided any evidence, and if he is extradited will not need to.All this does beg the question though, they seem hell bent on setting an example of him, I wonder what is on those systems

As for he done them a favour its the typical thing people say, and there is no excuse to have the open systems he claimed to use to lauch his research attacks. In reality though people say this as its government, you wouldnt say that if you suffered ID Theft or similar as a result of a similar breach of your bank.

I hope he gets a fair and just trial, and it gets done and dusted soon, its been dragging on for years now.

the simple point is that no one asked for his help. whether he found vulnerabilities is entirely irrelevant. He broke into systems he wasn't supposed to access.

Also, lets use some common sense, there is an idea of precedent. it wouldn't make much sense for the gov to to let him off, because then the next criminal would cry about how the govt let mcckinnon off with a slap on the wrist for the same thing.

dalepearson wrote:Apparently he accepted the 6 months, but they wouldnt offer it in writing.

I'd read the same thing (can't find the article, think it was on El Reg) and I think this was one of his complaints with the US extradation guys not playing fair.

Whilst I think the chance of the guy getting a fair hearing given all the publicity is slim, he did access government systems without authorisation. I think the authorities may come down on him harder than he might deserves, but as Chris says, they can't afford to let him off the hook, else he may end up creating the 'ET defense'

One thing that is bugging me with his defence is that I have been following the case for a few years and have only just heard mentioned that he may have a mild form of aspergers. If he was competent enough to slide through government security (despite it supposedly being wide open) he should be competent enough to know he shouldn't be doing it, to bring this up at the 11th hour smells like gamesmanship from his lawyers to me...

Should he be sat in a jail cell for the next few years? Yes. Most certainly

Should he be extradited? No. According to UK law he committed the offence in the UK and should therefore be charged and tried in the UK courts. There have been many similar cases where extradition was refused. The only reason I can see that this is different is that he's been labeled a terrorist (which IMHO is BS).

smells like gamesmanship from his lawyers to me...

Both sides have been guilty of this from day one "your going to serve 45yrs unless you come quitely" "Guantanamo Bay for you boy" etc.. but that's just lawyers for you.

The claim by the media that McKinnon is "worlds greatest hacker" is laughable. From what I've read he's one step up from a script kiddie, maybe not even a whole step, a skiddie with lifts in his shoes.

RoleReversal wrote:One thing that is bugging me with his defence is that I have been following the case for a few years and have only just heard mentioned that he may have a mild form of aspergers. If he was competent enough to slide through government security (despite it supposedly being wide open) he should be competent enough to know he shouldn't be doing it, to bring this up at the 11th hour smells like gamesmanship from his lawyers to me...

Chan wrote:Should he be sat in a jail cell for the next few years? Yes. Most certainly

Should he be extradited? No. According to UK law he committed the offence in the UK and should therefore be charged and tried in the UK courts. There have been many similar cases where extradition was refused. The only reason I can see that this is different is that he's been labeled a terrorist (which IMHO is BS).

Regarding the aspergers I agree, I think they are just doing all they can to try and keep him in this country. From the Video footage I have seen of him, he comes across as a knowledgable and intelligent person.

Regarding the UK law thing, I am no expert, but I believe its the issue with UK law that is allowing for the extradition without evidence in the first place.

He shouldnt of done what he did, everyone knows it and so does he.He needs a good telling off, some time away for some more thinking (sure he has done alot of that over the last 6 years), and he should be tried fairly inkeeping with what he has done, with the real evidence.He may be a criminal, but I dont think its fair to leave it all hanging for so long.